Let's Talk Reality.

You see, there's a fundamental base premise here.

Reality - that stuff outside YOU - actually exists.

That is, if you fall down and bump your head, and go unconscious, the world around you does not cease to exist until you wake up again; it goes on without you.

If a tree falls in the forest, and no-one is around to hear it, OF COURSE it makes a sound; there's just no-one there to hear it.

This seems "duhhhhh" obvious, doesn't it?

But it is deceptively important.

You see, many of the economic and political "principles" and ideologies that are being shopped around these days depend - for them to function - on that base premise NOT being true.

They depend on the notion that reality is what we say it is, and no more; that there is no objective, external anything, but only the frothy fluff cast up by our own minds.

...This post may be a bit of a ramble, so work with me here.

Communism, an ideology currently in vogue amonst people who are insufficiently educated to understand why it's a dumb idea, is one of these. It is so because in order for communism to "work," NO-ONE in the entire system, from top to bottom, can have any self-interest at all; no greed at all; no desire to better themselves, or improve their lot in life at all; only, and always, "the best for the team."

If history demonstrates anything, it is that this quality - I don't find it noble, so don't go there - is nearly totally lacking, in the entire human species. We are as a rule selfish and money-grubbing; power-hungry, and generally interested ONLY in what's best for US.

Socialism is another of these, and for nearly identical reasons, since the only real differences between communism and socialism lie in the degree of power held by the state; socialism can accurately be termed "commie-lite."

Anarchism is another of these.

Given no structure at all, no means of protecting individuals from other individuals, the strongest bully-boy quickly - and inevitably - forms a gang, and proceeds to rob everyone else blind, culminating in warfare if any other local gangs have formed; the inevitable end result of anarchism is, quickly, totalitarianism of one form or another under the rubric of whichever bully-boy's gang comes out ahead.

Because self-interest wins out over the lofty idea that we can each do our own work, independent of anyone else, and not be beholden to anyone. Sooner or later, I assure you, someone gets the brilliant realization that they actually have more free time if they let you do the hard work, then bop you on the head and take it, instead of doing the hard work themselves.

Again, not matching with reality, but reality "as it should be."

In fact, the ONLY economic system that takes that objective reality - that humans are humans - into account, is capitalism. There IS no currently accepted political system that does this.

I will explain, since democracy is a sacred cow, and capitalism is frequently misunderstood, thanks in no small part to the idiots on the news who are trying to call the recent economic meltdown in the U.S. a failure of it.

First, democracy. We don't have it here; we never have; we were never intended to. The Framers knew with great clarity just how rapid the dissolution of the newly-founded country would be if EVERYONE got a vote of equal worth in its day-to-day operations.

To wit, once you can vote yourself funds from the public purse, why work at all? Why not simply vote for more welfare?

...This is exactly what's happening, too.

See, the Framers knew this; they were, by and large educated men for the times, and they knew their history - and it was in large part EXACTLY this flaw in the concept of democracy that destroyed the Roman Empire; once citizens realized they could vote for free stuff from the government, they did so - until there was no money left in the treasury. And then things came apart at the seams. (This is of course a vast simplification of something that took several hundred years, but the welfare - entitlement mentality was the root cause.)

So, because their philosophical base was freedom - Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, specifically - they tried hard to invent a NEW form of government, one in which "democracy" was limited in scope and nature. At the time, they limited the franchise to land owners, reasoning that those who owned land contributed more in taxes - directly - to the public treasury than anyone else, and thus deserved a greater voice.

They set it up as representative, rather than direct, because allowing direct public votes on laws would result in a tyranny of the majority, with the inevitability of the tides.

They set it up with two legislative houses, with very different characters, so that the self-interests of the House (more frequent re-election, thus serving their constituents' needs more directly) were offset by the self-interests of the Senate (less frequent re-election, allowing the Senators to pursue personal aggrandizement to a greater degree,) and by requiring that the final version of any law be agreed upon by a majority of BOTH houses, they ensured as best as was within their ability that laws exiting that body would be at least somewhat in the public interest.

They set up a Supreme Court, of judges with life terms once appointed; thus removing the judges' self-interest from the equation by enriching them, giving them power, and merely requiring them to NOT QUIT; giving those judges the authority over all other courts in the land.

They set up an executive office, the Presidency, so that there would not be a hereditary ruler; made the executive able to veto the Congress, but the Congress able to override vetoes with sufficient majority; gave the President great power to enact certain kinds of regulations, and then stopped, and said "that's enough government."

At that point, we started our hundreds-of-years-in-length efforts to destroy it.

First up was the agenda of expanding the franchise.

Because unless everyone can vote, you can't build a welfare class, you see, and there's no GOOD reason to allow "one man, one vote."

This is a cruel, tragic lie. It gets perpetuated a lot; "disenfranchising people is wrong!"

...Why?

In a country with a public school system, purportedly able to guarantee every citizen the same basic education, why is it wrong to give a basic education test before allowing a citizen to vote?

Simply put, there is nothing wrong with telling someone "you are too uninformed about current events to cast a wise vote; go home."

There is also nothing wrong with requiring that some contribution to the society be made by the citizen, before they are allowed to exercise their franchise.

The only motivation for ignoring those requirements - note, in this modern age; prior to public schooling for all, the education requirement would have been discriminatory - is to KNOWINGLY allow disinterested, apathetic, ignorant people to vote.

Why would you want this?

Because disinterested, apathetic, ignorant people are easily swayed.

As are the young, which is why the franchise is now down to eighteen-year-olds.

In reality, a person with the longevity and health of our country as a whole in mind would want a well-informed, contributory electorate; this means limiting the franchise.

The system I would support - I've mentioned this before - would replace our current voting laws by establishing a civilian federal service equivalent to the Armed Forces for purposes of the franchise; requiring that citizens prove themselves to be 18 years of age before joining, and that they serve a successfully completed term of at least 4 years in said federal service or the Armed Forces prior to gaining the franchise; prior to exercising it, they would register to vote by going to the polling location and taking a current events class on the issues up for a vote, including the backgrounds of the candidates running for office, and the text of any bills up for vote; followed by a test on what they just covered, and concluding - if they pass - with a vote.

Our current "election day" claptrap would be replaced by a 3 or 5 day mandated national holiday during which ONLY emergency services and utilities would remain in operation; this allows all eligible citizens the chance to exercise their franchise.

A side benefit of the class, is to guarantee that legislation becomes greatly simplified, because anything too long to get covered in the class... why, it will fail, because no-one will be able to pass the test on it.

This system would ensure that the only citizens voting are the ones willing to contribute their very own sweat and effort to improving the country; that they know who they're voting for, and what they're voting on; does away with the time-honored practice of floating bills past gullible populations by printing something 14 pages long and laced with lawyer-speak, and then saying "well, what it does is..." when it in fact does no such thing.

So. Democracy.

Democracy is when any clown can vote, and does; his vote is exactly equal to mine; and since the stupid and uneducated have ALWAYS outnumbered the smart throughout human history, democracy invariably results in failure, because stupid people vote for stupid things, until it falls down.

Which is exactly why we have a representative republic.

Capitalism, now...

Capitalism is an economic system. Under capitalism, the primary rule is that the best price for a product is the price at which you can sell the greatest number of products while still making a profit (that's simplified, but basically it,) and it is wholly predicated on the notion that human beings are out for themselves.

See, under capitalism, it is IN OUR BEST INTEREST to work together. Not the best interest of the state, or the government, or our community, OUR best interest. 

If I work together with YOU, then between us we can each do a part of a job, and thus work far less - with the same productivity as if we had each done the job individually from start to finish.

For example, have any of you ever been to an Amish barn-raising?

It takes them an afternoon; they gather up a bunch of guys from the community, and put up a barn in one day that would take the individual farmer months to do working alone, if it were even possible at all.

They are paid for this, because the next time they need a barn, the man whose barn they just put up, will come help them put up their barn, "free."

Except it's not free; it's capitalism. They are investing their time and effort, against a return of future time and effort from the other participants.

And the result? Every Amish farm has a barn, and they didn't have to work for two months dawn to dusk to manage it.

Capitalism counts on you not wanting to do more work than you just have to. That's the whole idea; BECAUSE you are lazy, you want someone else to do part of the work; they, in turn, want you to do part of theirs; so you trade part of yours for part of theirs, and the greater the number of people involved in this, the more effective it becomes.

Which is why in our society, you can get fresh eggs every day, no matter where you live or what you do, and never even see a chicken; because there are poeple whose portion of the work is exclusively to grow chickens and produce eggs, so you don't have to - and somewhere, there is someone who grows wheat and corn to feed the chickens, and somewhere there is someone who makes fertilizer to grow the wheat and corn, and somewhere there is someone who makes the mechanical equipment for the creation of fertilizer, and someone who makes the tools that make those machines, and someone who mines the raw metals for the refineries run by someone else that make the raw materials for the tool shop, and...

...Do you see?

Only capitalism allows this degree of market specialization - and that specialization is what allows a society to grow, advance, and develop.

If everyone still had to feed their own chickens to produce their own eggs, there assuredly wouldn't be an internet, because the technology would never have developed to that point, because people would be too busy feeding and cleaning up after chickens to create computers.

The market system - price system, to use Friedman's term for it - is the only ACTUAL system for world peace. It is the only way to create aligned self-interests - and wars arise primarily from misaligned self-interests.

Anyone who is anti-capitalist, is anti-peace; anti-human; and frankly, wrong.

The current market meltdown didn't result from "deregulation - see what those greedy capitalists did?"

No.

It happened because of continuous, excessive intervention in the market by the federal government, something governments are notoriously bad at; and now, the same people are calling it a failure of capitalism, that wanted the franchise granted to all and sundry.

I wonder why that is.

Perhaps because those people do NOT have the nation's best interests at heart - OR yours.

Perhaps because they really don't understand these concepts.

Either way, they're not the ones who ought to be in charge, hmmmmm?